


Nowhere is Somewhere

by rinskiroo



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Family, Force-Sensitive Poe Dameron, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers, but it kind of is, it wasn't supposed to be shippy, now with part 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-02-16 20:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13061877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinskiroo/pseuds/rinskiroo
Summary: In the aftermath, Poe tries to convince Rey Jakku isn't so bad.Rey helps Poe find what he's lost.SPOILERS.  SPOILERS.  SPOILERS.





	1. Chapter 1

“You’re lucky,”  she tells him out of the blue one day.  They’re standing—well, squatting—under a piece of the _Falcon_ trying to adjust bent stabilizers.

“I’m sorry?”  Poe looks over, confused.  And nervous.  He’s so cool, like she always imagined hot shot X-Wing pilots to be—at least, around everyone else.  Around her, he’s fidgety and carefully chooses his words.

“You know exactly where you come from.  Your parents.  Grandparents.  All their friends.”  Her eyes cut across the field, where they’ve parked the old freighter, to the huts of this village that has offered them refuge.  Maz was the only one to answer their call.  Helped them find a place to regroup.  Lick their wounds.  Leia’s in one of those huts, trying to find someone—anyone—who will help.

It shouldn’t have bothered her, the words that Kylo Ren had implanted in her brain.  That she was no one, came from nowhere.  Was barely worth a flagon.  But it did.  It ate at her insides and tore a hole that never seemed to fill back up.

“I know where you come from, Rey,”  he says.  The words spill honestly from him.

Her eyes cut back towards him.  She wants to be harsh, laugh, be sarcastic—anything but as honest as he’s being now.  “Do you?”

“Yeah,”  he grins.  His eyes crinkle with his smile, hints of white teeth behind his lips.  “You’re from Jakku.”

Of course he knows.  She realizes how foolish the words were leaving her lips.  He had taken the map from Jakku.  Left BB-8 on Jakku.  Fallen from the sky with Finn and crashed into Jakku.  Been thought dead on Jakku.

Junkyard.  Nowhere.

Buried in a pauper’s grave.

“Jakku’s nowhere,”  she says.

“Well…”  Poe shrugs his shoulders as his fingers tighten on the spanner and he goes back to over-tightening the same bolt.  He’s nervous again, like he shouldn’t have said anything and just let the conversation hang.  He’s probably wondering if he should do that now, or chance to continue talking.  “It’s Inner Rim.  So it’s not _nowhere_.”

“You know what I mean.”

There’s a sigh she doesn’t catch the meaning behind and he drops the spanner back into the toolbox.  “That’s the last one.  Should be good to go now.”  He puts his hand up so as not to hit his head as he stands and maneuvers out from under the _Falcon_.  There’s a pang of guilt as she feels as if she’s just shot him down.  Clipped his wing with a blaster charge and sent him spinning into the dirt.  Well, didn’t he have more important things to do anyway than fiddle around with this old ship?  Surely, the honeymoon period with the ship of legend should have worn off by now.

Meals are always a communal thing.  They make a large pot of something; Rey doesn’t care what it is, just enjoys that it’s warm and there’s enough to fill her belly.  They sit around on these flat stone tablets and have pleasant conversations, tell jokes, old stories, count the stars.  The inhabitants of this village—short, large eared creatures who speak little Basic mostly translated by Threepio.  They are friendly enough and freely offer what’s left of what they have to the Resistance.  They have their own stories about the stars and moons and the ancient civilizations.

Rey is fascinated.  She wishes she had a great story to tell.  But she scavenged junk, fought off thieves.  She scraped at parts until her fingers bled in order to have barely enough food to not die.  She has one story—well, two.  The one about how she rescued a droid and a former storm trooper and escaped on the _Millennium Falcon_.  And the one where she met Luke Skywalker.  She doesn’t tell the story about Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, and Snoke.  She told Leia.  She told Finn.  Everyone else only know that Snoke is dead, not the details.  They’ve seen the split saber, but no one asks.  Rey doesn’t mind telling her stories, but she’d rather hear everyone else’s.

“We’re talking the last great stand.  The battle to end all the battles.  Every.  Ship.  On both sides.”  Poe’s standing on one of the stone tablets they use as a table.  He’s got his bowl in one hand with thick stew sloshing about and a spoon in the other as he weaves the tale.  “The Republic—a string of victories, a new government.  The Empire—in its death throes.”

The light from the fire flicks over Dameron’s features.  He’s a natural leader, ace pilot, and, in that moment, a magician with words.  Rey finds herself captivated by the drama he’s reliving.  She can see it clearly, as if she’s watching some holo-novella.

“We have legends: Ackbar, Rieekan, Ranz—“  There’s a dramatic pause.  “Wedge karking Antilles.”

Someone whoops in the crowd.  Another whistles.  They love the stories of the Rebellion and Poe knows them all.  He’s like his own HoloNet archive.

“We’ve even got Imperial defectors: Stramm, Kyrell, and Versio.”

Rey looks at Finn at this point in Poe’s telling of the story.  He’s grinning wide at his friend.  In forty years, will they tell the story of Finn the defector?  She hopes people will remember him.  Remember his bravery and selflessness.

“We’ve got _Starhawks_ , _Home One_ , the _Liberty_ , and more X-Wings, A-Wings, and Y-Wings than I could count.  Stop me if I’m lying, Snap.”  Poe points with his spoon to his friend and fellow pilot.

Snap Wexley lets out an almost embarrassed chuckle as he waves the other pilot off.  “Stop reminding people I was at that battle.  My joints ache enough.”  A woman with short blonde hair sitting next to him throws her head back and laughs loudly and punches him in the shoulder none too gently.  Rey grins at their antics, their camaraderie, their love.

Poe continues listing off the names of ships, squadrons, and Generals like the damn encyclopedia he is.  But it doesn’t sound like a history lesson.  He’s excited; he makes his audience excited.  He tells the story with gusto, passion, and with reverence.

It takes Rey a moment of listening to the enchanting tenor of his voice before she realizes she knows exactly what he’s detailing.

“An _Executor_ , _twenty_ Star Destroyers—“

“Twenty-five.”

Poe pauses in the middle of his recount, spoon still held aloft.  Several heads turn from him to her and her small voice that cut through his rousing story.

“There were twenty-five Star Destroyers at the Battle of Jakku.  Twenty-three _Imperial_ -class and two _Interdictor_ -class.”

The hand holding the spoon drops slightly and he grins—a cheeky sort of smile she’d only seen him give other people before.  “Well, it looks like I’m not the only war history nerd here.”

“No.”  She shakes her head as she takes one step at a time towards him.  She doesn’t know why she has to correct him, but he’s wrong and she knows he’s wrong.  People should have the facts, even if they’re dumb facts like how many dead star cruisers litter her nothing planet.  “I’ve just seen them.  Counted them.”

“Beebee-ate, make sure you record that.”  He points his spoon like the ringleader of a circus at the droid.  Like her correcting him was part of his performance.  “Twenty- _five_ Star Destroyers.”

The evening wears on and they drift off to their borrowed huts and tents and scattered sleeping rolls.  Rey stares into the fire and slurps the last of the leftovers out of her bowl.  Not a drop wasted.

“You knew how many Star Destroyers were at Jakku,”  she says to the man fidgeting with the laces on his boot.  It’s an amused sort of accusation as she recognizes he was trying to get her attention, to draw her into the spectacle.

“I was rounding.”  He shrugs as he stands up, nonchalantly walks over to where she’s sitting.  His hands wipe on his trousers, then rest on his hips, then dig into his pockets.

“You don’t round, _General_.”  Rey smirks at his new title.  It’s not derisive, but proud.  He saved what was left of the Resistance.  Led them out of the tomb to fight another day.  And he doesn’t round.  He’s detailed.  Precise.  She scoots over slightly on her stone bench next to the fire and it takes him a few shuffles of his feet before he finally takes the offered seat.  Somehow, though he’s still inches from her, he’s warmer than the fire.  Like he’s his own star.

She sees him.  Not in a way she expected.

“The Empire fell that day,”  Poe says after a moment.  His elbows rest on his knees.  His fingers twist together.  “Fell right into the sands of Jakku.”

“Junkyard.”

“Yeah.”  He can’t disagree on the point.  It’s too obvious.  Her whole life was sifting through garbage.  The Republic left all its mess in the Jakku sands and went home to celebrate.  “But it’s still an important place.  Something very significant happened on Jakku.

“When I was a kid, I went on this tour of historical battle sites.  We saw all the big ones: Yavin, Hoth, Endor, Naboo... and Jakku.”

“Kids?”  Rey raises her brows at him, nearly to her hairline.  “Tourists?  On Jakku?”

“Well, not on.  We just saw it from space.  My point is—“  His hands reach out, nearly cover hers, but he stops himself.  His eyes drift from his hands to her eyes.  And he’s so honest, again.  “The place you come from—I mean, not that it even really matters now—but it’s not nowhere.”

It bothers her more than it should—the shame of coming from nothing, of parents who sold her.  But this man, son of heroes, of a privileged upbringing, telling her she should be proud of where she came from.  She sees the kindness in his attempt and she offers him a small smile.  “Do you think when they tell stories about us, they’ll call me ‘Rey from Jakku’?”

Poe’s quiet for a second, like he’s turning over the thought in his head, thinking about his words far too carefully.  He looks at her again, a sincerity in his dark brown eyes.  Different from the looks she’s gotten from other people.  It’s wholly unnerving but at the same time ensnaring.  “I think they’ll call you whatever you want them to.  Whether it’s Rey from Jakku, or Jedi, or Porg Herder.”

“Oh, please, no.”  She laughs, a bit harder than she intended.  Her hand covers her mouth and nose as an unattractive snort exits her nostril.  Poe laughs then, too, and whatever odd moment that had caused the air to still dissipates with the smoke.

“If I had not been on Jakku,”  Rey says slowly as she wipes a tear of laughter from the corner of her eye.  She plays into this conversation that Jakku isn’t entirely worthless, even if she still doesn’t believe it.  “I would not have learned how to survive.”

“A very important skill.”

Rey laughs again at his obvious quip.  “Or all about ships and how they work and how to speak to droids.”

“Sometimes I like talking to droids more than people.”

“Are you just going to interrupt me through this entire admission that, while my upbringing was cruel and horrible, it did seem to serve a purpose?”

 Poe holds up his hands in defeat and doesn’t say another word.

“And I never would have found Beebee-ate, or Finn.  Or you.”  She gives him a look that she hopes matches the one he gave her.  Something that’s open and honest and tells him that she appreciates what he did for her today.

Poe’s hand hovers over hers again and she wonders why he hesitates.  She makes the decision for him and presses the top of her hand into his palm.  It’s as warm as she imagined; calloused, and yet, with a softness.

“I wish you could have had a better start, Rey,”  he says before he swallows thickly, the words rumbling around in his chest.  “But you’re here, now, with us.”

She understands his meaning, though he seems to have a hard time putting it into so many words.  They’re all family here.  Not just Poe and Leia because she knew him when he was a boy, was friends with his parents.  Or Snap and Karé because they’re married.  But every one of them.  She may have fallen into this rebellion accidentally, or maybe the Force pushed her a bit, but she’ll keep them.  They’re hers now.

When they get to their feet to finally turn in for the night, Rey wraps her arms around Poe.  She feels him stiffen against her touch, unsure.  She plants her cheek on his shoulder and squeezes him close.  It takes a second, but he seems to remember what to do in this sort of situation and embraces her back.  His warm hand is in her hair and there’s a long, slow breath from both of them.

“Thank you, Poe.”


	2. Chapter 2

The embrace leaves him warm even in the cool air.  Rey’s fingers linger down his arm and split fire across his hand where she’d held on as she walked away.  He watches her go—walking steady, one foot in front of the other back to the _Falcon_.  She doesn’t sashay, doesn’t swing her hips, and her hair doesn’t bounce with springy steps.  She walks with confidence, with purpose.  She bypasses the things that are unnecessary and she _flies_ —straight and true.

Poe stops himself—shakes his head, picks his jaw up, and pushes his teeth back together.  He smiles and nearly laughs.  Yeah, he likes her.  Thinks she’s as pretty as a wild monja flower, but he’s old and starting to become jaded.  Someone like him, he’d wear away all that shining optimism.  The energy of that youth would drain him and leave them both dried up and brittle like fallen leaves in winter.

He sighs and finds a few more logs for their fire, keeping up the warmth for those who had poor luck and had to sleep out under the stars.  _Not so poor_ , he thinks as his eyes glance upward.  Far out to the left, just off the Junction Belt—with a squint, he spots home.  He mumbles a goodnight to his father, hopes that he’s well.

“All the kids are tucked in for the night, General,”  he says as he ducks into one of the domed huts that has become Leia’s private sanctuary.  Poe’s not sure how much or a sanctuary it can be with everyone popping in to tell her every minute detail that’s happening.  He thinks he’ll have to set up some sort of chain-of-command again.  They’re barely enough to fill out half a wing, nowhere near a real military anymore.  They still need some sort of structure, routine, and a plan.

“How’s Rey?”  she asks.  Though she’s still leaning over the only computer console in this village, scrolling through newsfeeds and unanswered messages, there’s a ghost of a smile on her face.

“She’s good,”  he says quickly, slaps his hands together and rubs them a few times.  Tells himself it’s to stay warm.  The conversation dips into an awkward pause and Poe pushes a few pieces of chipped pottery aside to pick up a datapad.  “Any news?”

Her head moves slowly from one side to the other.  Nothing.  She sits up slightly and rubs a hand across the back of her neck.  Her hair has fallen out of its prim bun and instead cascades down her back.  Brown infused with streaks of grey.  For a moment, Poe sees himself.  A tired leader with hair turning silver.  He doesn’t like it.  Not because he doesn’t _want_ to lead—he has to now.  Poe doesn’t believe he could ever lead an army, a rebellion, or even a camping expedition half as well as Leia Organa.

And he certainly doesn’t want to turn grey.  He’s not _that_ old.

“We should contact my father.”  The idea hits him suddenly.  Smacks him right in the back of the _oh, why didn’t I think of that sooner?_   “There’s at least a full squadron of antique fighters in pristine condition in the museum they made out of the old Yavin base.  Plus my mom’s A-Wing.  The YDF would be sympathetic—might be able to recruit.”

Leia leans back further and hums slightly against the hand that’s come to her mouth to stifle a yawn.  She’s thoughtful as she watches him, listens to him name off other museums and old shrines to the Rebellion they might be able to loot.  Because that’s what this is—they‘d be stealing those artifacts.  For a good cause—and is it really stealing if it’s Leia Organa, former Rebellion leader, the one doing the taking?

“Let’s give it a few more days.  Wait for the rest of our scouts to return and give our people a chance to rest.  The First Order is just as crippled as we are.”

“That’s why we need to get out there _now_.  Get to those resources before they do!”

“You think the First Order is going to steal half a dozen Y-Wings with no munitions?”  There’s humor in her voice, a twinkle in her eye.

Probably not.

She stands and moves slowly over towards him.  Her hand rests heavily on his shoulder.  For a moment, she just stands there, takes a long breath in and lets it back out.  She does it a few more times and Poe wonders if maybe she’s fallen asleep standing up.  Finally, her eyes blink and she looks rested as if maybe she _did_ fall asleep.

“Don’t forget to breathe, Poe.  Just breathe.”  She squeezes his shoulder and then moves her hand away.  With the nod of her head, he realizes he’s been dismissed.

“Goodnight, General.”

The _Falcon_ isn’t the best sleeping accommodations.  Not these days, anyway.  It was probably nice and cozy way back when, but now there’s a make-shift medbay in the forward cargo hold, as many bunks as they could cram into the rear cargo hold, along with a few bodies splayed out in the common area, including Finn.  Chewie’s camped out under the stars—complains the smell of the bird-rodent infestation won’t let him sleep when Poe asks.  He laughs and promises to help get them cleaned out before they do any permanent damage.

Poe pokes his head in the different rooms and tries to find an empty bunk.  He doesn’t spot Rey (not that he’s looking).  She’s probably taken over the captain’s quarters.  It’s her ship now after all.  He’s happy for her that she gets a bit of privacy, and a bit jealous.

It’s funny, he thinks, remembering their conversation from earlier in the day.  His parents were heroes.  Poe has a rebel pedigree, grew up in the shadow of their great victory, learned to fly in one of its relics.  His life had followed a path that was always his.  He was recruited into Leia Organa’s orbit, just as his mother had been.

And he’d nearly lost it.

Almost threw it all away.  Mistake followed by mistake.  At the time, he’d thought himself brilliant, untouchable, _righteous_.  It was all folly.  He’d seen hope die over and over, and he had been the one to kill it.

Rey, he thinks as he settles into the co-pilot’s seat (thinks it would be rude to sit in the pilot’s when it’s not his ship and she’s not here).  Rey came from nothing and yet she has **the** _Millennium Falcon_ , Luke’s lessons, and Leia’s devotion.

She is set to inherit the stars.

Poe thinks he’s lucky to have not screwed up so badly that he would have missed this chance to be in her orbit.  He holds onto that small, pleasant thought as his eyes drift shut and his mind wanders off to find rest.

It’s the guilt that feeds his nightmares now.  Before, it had been the black mask and the fingers clawing through his skull.  That had been terrifying all on its own.  Now, it’s combined with images of exploding bombers, fighters, and skiffs.

Paige smiles at him, lifts her hand in a salute, tells him,  “We’ll get ‘em, Commander.  Count on us.”

She falls into the fire.

Tallie glances at him from inside her A-Wing.  Stars, she reminds him so much of himself.  Grew up on a farm.  Learned to fly in her dad’s RZ-1.  It’s like a mirror only ten years younger.

An explosion.  Decompression.  The doors shut and he’s the only one to make it out of the hangar.

Finn’s voice calls him from far away.  But then a different voice calls him by another name.  She’s cold and menacing and Poe feels ice in his veins as the dread takes over.  She’ll kill him.  And it won’t be quick.  Poe sent him on this mission and in the end it wasn’t even _necessary_.  He was throwing their lives away.

_“I had no idea we had the best pilot in the Resistance on board.”_

The best?  Poe doesn’t think so anymore.  The brashest, most spoiled, most short-sighted?  Maybe that.  Not the best.  Hell, Snap has been in the fight since Poe was still in diapers.  Pava’s still a kid, still learning, but she’ll fly circles around anyone.  Tallie—there’s no telling how far she could have gone.

And Rey.

She puts a dodgy old freighter through moves Poe isn’t sure he could pull in a nimble X-Wing.

She smiles at him, too.  A brilliant light in the sad darkness.  Her eyes crinkle with her grin, her head tilts ever so slightly.  Poe wants to laugh with her, but the dread is still clawing through his chest.  The guilt still eats at him.  He thinks she shouldn’t be here in his terrible dreams.  He’ll dim her light, tarnish her shine.

Another light shines on her—bright blue held above her head.  She blocks red, blow after blow.  The monster calls to her, tempts her, offers her power and… something else.  Poe feels sick.  She tries to strike back, but he’s overwhelming her.

The scream of TIE fighters overhead.

A ship’s klaxon.

They can’t win.  Not today.  Not ever.

“Poe.”

He’s hovering between the despairing nightmare and almost-awake.  Damp curls stick to his forehead and his back is aching from sleeping in the old chair.  But he can’t shake the terror or the shame.  He can’t help but feel that this last vision his miserable subconscious has sent is somehow also his fault.

“ _Poe_ ,”  Rey says his name again.  “You’re all right.”

His hand reaches up and grasps her fingers holding onto his shoulder.  Now that he’s awake, she tries to pull away, but he holds her there, presses her hand into his shoulder.  He needs this.  Needs to feel that this is real.

He sees her, but not in a way he expected.

She glows.  Brilliant.  Like the sun.

Poe lets go of her fingers and wipes his hands across his face, finally awake enough to be embarrassed.  Rey pulls back and tugs the small blanket closer around her shoulders as she sits down in the pilot’s seat.

“Take a breath,”  she says quietly.  “Slowly.  In and out.  Just breathe.”

He does what she tells him and beat by beat, his heart rate comes down.  The tendrils of the haunting visions gradually recede back to the darkness.  The air feels a little different in the cockpit.  There had been a chill, but now it’s warm, comforting.  His nose catches a whiff of the smell of the white orchid and he quickly rubs his hands over his face again.

“That was weird,”  he mumbles to himself.

“Your dream?”

“No, I—well, yeah, that too.  I just got a really odd sensation all of a sudden.”  He bends over and finds the canteen left abandoned on the floor and takes a quick swig, washes down the cotton in his mouth and the scratch in his throat from the cool air.

“What was it?”  She’s curious and thoughtful, genuinely interested.

He opens his mouth, and closes it again.  The scent brought back memories of home, of childhood, of something very particular.  Something that makes him feel loved and whole, and that everything is right in the world.  And he feels guilty, again, because Rey had told him he’s lucky to have those things.  He knows that he is, but he doesn’t want Rey to feel alone the way she had the day before.

“Tell me,”  she prods with a smile.  “You’ve got this contented look on your face and I want to know where it comes from.”

Poe lets out a small laugh and runs his fingers through his hair.  He doesn’t know what to say, how to phrase it.  It sounds silly and fake.  Probably is.  He no doubt imagined it—just another wisp of the dream hanging on.

“My mom had these flowers that she grew.  Just for a second, I could smell them.  Like I was a kid and back home.  Weird, right?”

Rey’s thoughtful as she watches him.  The corner of her lips curls up just a tick and she shakes her head.  She doesn’t look sad, like she’s jealous of his parents that he knew and loved, of the happy home he grew up in.  Maybe it hasn’t all gone away—that sort of pain doesn’t—but she smiles, sharing in his happy memory.  “It’s lovely.  She was a pilot, right?  In the Rebellion?  Finn told me she flew with Leia and the _Queen of Naboo_?”

Poe chuckles at Rey’s look of disbelief.  Former freighter pilot turned revolutionary flying missions with royalty.  “Just the one time.”

“It must have been hard, losing her so young.  I would have liked to have met her.”

“Yeah, me too.  I mean, I would have liked if you met her.  She was my mom; I met her lots of times.”

Rey laughs lightly as he stumbles over the conversation.  Any sort of smoothness he thinks that he has likes to sprout wings and fly away whenever he’s around her.  She doesn’t seem to mind.  He hopes she doesn’t.

“All I ever wanted to do was to make them proud.”  His tone is suddenly somber, reflective, while his thoughts flit back to the dream and what Shara Bey would think of his recent decisions.  “I’m not sure she would have been onboard with what I did.  All the people who died on a quick-fix, low-odds mission.  Everyone we lost on the way to Crait because _I_ had to be the hero?”

Poe shakes his head.  His mother didn’t raise a fool, but that’s what he is.

Rey’s quiet for a moment.  She looks at him in a way that makes him feel self-conscious.  But not in the way he thinks he’d like her to look at him.  It’s something else.  Something deeper.

“Why did you go after that dreadnaught even after Leia called you back?”

“It could have killed us.  If the evacuation didn’t get off D’Qar in time.”

“But the evacuation was done.  Leia told you to pull the bombers back.  Why did you keep going?”

Poe thinks that maybe he should feel resistant to her questions.  Defend what had been shown to be indefensible.  The wrong call.  Others have told him why they think he did it—Leia and Holdo thought he had to be the hero, Finn thinks he was desperate, grasping onto anything to save his friends, Snap thinks it was for the survival of the Resistance.  That’s the way pilots think—any cost to carry on the fight, win the day.  No one’s asked what he thinks.  Why he made the call.

“I had to.”  For a second, he feels the helmet clamping down around his head and he’s pressed inside his old friend, Black One.  He sees the massive fleet killer in front of him.  And he _knows_ it has to be stopped.  “I just knew.  If we didn’t take that thing out right then, that was it.  It was like I could see it—those big cannons tearing right through the _Raddus_.”

He doesn’t notice her moving, stuck in the flash of memory.  She’s shifted out of the pilot’s seat and leaves her shawl of a blanket behind as she scoots closer to him.  There isn’t really room for her to stand there in front of him.  Their knees knock together as she relaxes against the console, watching him.

“You were right,”  she says quietly.  “They tracked you through hyperspace.  If that dreadnaught had been there, it would have taken out the whole fleet.  The entire Resistance would be gone.”

“Yeah, we know that _now_.  But in that moment—“

“It was still true.”

There’s something else she wants to say, but she can’t seem to find the words.  Poe watches her lips twist slightly and her nose crinkle as she thinks.  She takes a small breath and then finally seems to find what she wants to tell him.

“You have very good instincts, General.”  He winces slightly when she uses his new title.  He’s not sure he deserves, thinks he was the best option out of a pool of lousy choices.  “Sometimes, it’s ego or fear, the little voice in our heads.  But sometimes, it’s something else that can see all of the possibilities.  And sometimes, if we listen, we end up on the right path.  Even if we don’t know it at the time.”

Poe’s quiet for a moment, processes what she’s saying.  The Force—just not in so few of words.  Perhaps not for himself, but for Leia, and Rey, the Force would guide his hand to help them.  It’s a nice thought to have.  Poe’s not sure he believes it, but as he watches Rey and feels how close she is—he knows she believes it.

He takes her hand gently, turns it over in his palm.  Short, dirty nails and calluses, and he realizes, in all their differences, there are similarities.  He can feel the tension in her fingertips at the sudden intimacy.  He feels the same electric current he felt the night before when she’d unexpectedly embraced him.  Their energies wrapping around each other with their arms.  It’s an odd feeling, not unpleasant, just unknown yet intriguing.

“Do you really think I can do this?”  He doesn’t know why he needs her approval, her faith, but he wants it, desperately.  Wants to know that she believes in him.

“Yes.”  The answer is breathy, but true.  “Do you think I can do…”  Her words taper off and her eyes roll upward, indicating perhaps everything else.

“Yes.”

Poe isn’t sure how it happens, why it happens, but he feels the shell of self-doubt he’s woven around himself start to crack.  A bit of that old Dameron comes back—the confidence and maybe some of the charm.

He presses his lips into her knuckles, softly savoring the warmth of her skin.  When he looks back up at her, her cheeks are flushed, but she doesn’t move, doesn’t pull away, just stares back at him with those big, kind, hazel eyes.

“Thank you, Rey.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reception for this little fic was so amazing I was inspired to write a companion piece from Poe's perspective. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you!

**Author's Note:**

> I read way too much into a couple of different scenes in that movie, if you can't tell.
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](http://rinskiroo.tumblr.com/).


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